Author Archives: Toph Beifong

goodness

Levar Burton, you were right

all I want is a small house with library that looks like this

In case you didn’t know, books are fucking magical.  “Hi,” they seem to say.  “I’m a dead tree that can make you smarter.”  See?  Magic.

I’ve always been totally fascinated by the concept that paper and ink can change a person simply by existing.  That’s all books do, really: sit around waiting to be discovered, like gems, like stars, like Atlantis.  All it takes is looking at them, and a person is different, no matter how small the change.  The power of ideas, knowledge, emotion, resting nearby, quietly lying in wait to pounce on my imagination like a happy predator, like my roommate’s cat, Calico; this is magic.  The written word is powerful, and this baffles and delights me.

I watched Reading Rainbow as a kid.  Giordi Laforge hosted, and he was the greatest.  He must be one of the most beloved people by my generation.  Every episode, he would basically say, “Let’s go on an adventure by looking at paper with words on it.”  I believe that’s what’s commonly known as magic.

all the cool kids read copiously

Butterfly in the sky
I can go twice as high
Take a look
It’s in a book
A Reading Rainbow

I can go anywhere
Friends to know
And ways to grow
A Reading Rainbow

I can be anything
Take a look
It’s in a book
A Reading Rainbow

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goodness, life

The right kind of crazy

Helping strangers is my favorite thing because random acts of kindness are always a little surprising, and the helper has no expectation of repayment.

seems legit

I encountered a Chinese woman while walking to the parking center from Office Job the other day.  She asked for directions to a freeway bus stop, and since it wasn’t far I told her I would just show her.  We chatted as we walked; she had just graduation with two masters degrees, loved living in LA (hooray!), and was looking for a job.  She was trying to get to El Monte (about 17mi away), and since I had the afternoon off, I offered to just drive her.  She said, “Really?!  Wow, that is so nice.  Thank you so much.”  It’s a little crazy to offer a ride to a stranger, but it’s definitely crazier to accept a ride from a stranger.  So win-win, right?  heh.

She turned out to be super nice.  I told her I work with another Chinese woman in my office who asks me questions about American culture and the English language all the time.  She jumped on that and asked if I could help her with her English too.  Of course!  This is my professional future!  She and Chinese Office Friend both said I should teach English in China and make bank.  Win!

I invited her to come play board games with us at my apartment some time.  She seemed really excited about that, and gave me her resume and got my phone number and email before we arrived.  After we arrived, she got her things together amid many ‘thank you’s,’ then looked me square in the eye and said, “Thank you for driving me.  You have the gift of the god.”  I was so touched.  I said thank you, and we promised to stay in touch.  I’m inviting her to my housewarming next Friday.

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goodness, nerd

The only modern art I can handle

WANT

People like me are the reason why a place like Giant Robot exists.  They do art exhibits there often, and I’ve bought a few prints and one small painting.  Deth P. Sun is my current favorite artist on display over there.  This piece is for sale right now, and if I could justify spending $250 on a painting right now, I would snatch it up.  His stuff has such a great sense of adventure, exploration, and the unknown.

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humor, life

Shut up about my hometown, already

OMFG STFU

I was reminded recently that I’m hyper-sensitive to people criticizing Los Angeles.  I met a neighbor who lives in my building last week, and our smalltalk led to the standard “Where are you from?”  When I said LA, he joked, “Oh, I’m sorry.”  He and my roommate had a good chuckle while I grinned and thought to myself, “Thanks, asshole.  I’m sorry that you feel forced to continue to live in such an awful city.”  What came out was, “I love LA.”  He backpedaled a bit and said he liked it here, at which point I decided his opinion was worthless, since what he had said could basically be summed up as the following:

“I pity you for being forced as a child to live in a city where, as an adult, I have chosen to reside.  How sad for you.  No, I don’t want to move away.  Why do you ask?”

I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve heard this totally meaningless opinion: I hate it here, but I choose to stay.  This is the thought pattern of a crazy person.  Luckily, I’ve found a solution of all those live-in haters: go away.  This remarkable breakthrough is the solution to the following common complaints:

–Traffic is awful– Because apparently no other major city in the world has traffic, people who come to Los Angeles are just shocked that a city with a population of almost ten million might have a few too many cars on the road.
Solution: Leave.  The people on the road aren’t a bunch of yahoos with nothing to do.  They’re people like you who came from somewhere else and decided to stay and complain rather than learn how to take a bus, stay off the road at rush hour, find an alternate route, or leave.

–It’s unsafe– Because apparently no other major city has similar crime rates, reading the LA Times makes people fear for their lives daily.  And unnecessarily.
Solution: Leave.  LA’s murder stats are almost five times lower than Baltimore, Maryland.  Chances are you’ll live through the day, and as major cities go, there are far worse places to get stabbed.  If you don’t feel safe in a city, move somewhere you’ll feel safe.  Fresno is nice this time of year.

hey look, it's you. GTFO

–I don’t know my neighbors– Because apparently every other major city is full of people who have become best friends living side-by-side, people who come to LA are just appalled that their neighbors don’t bring over cake and lasagna to welcome them to the neighborhood.  I have never encountered a neighbor who was opposed to stopping in the hall or on the sidewalk for a quick chat.  My parents introduced themselves to our new neighbors growing up.  Getting to know your neighbors takes a little bit of courage and time, neither of which the people complaining have in spades.
Solution: Leave.  Or introduce yourself to your neighbors, you anti-social shut-in.  Most of the people who log this complaint have never even knocked on their neighbor’s door to say hello.

The point is this: All these LA-specific complaints are not LA-specific, they’re big-city specific.  Here are some legitimate problems with LA:

Public transportation- I know, I just said people should learn to take the bus (I did between ages 12-20 all the time).  And yes, loads of people take the bus and *sigh* metro all over LA, but our public transportation system just sucks out loud.  It’s slow, unpredictable, crowded, and it just gets more and more expensive without any real improvements.

Bike lanes- Where do I start?  There are not enough significant bike lanes in LA to get around on a bike without being afraid for your life, and if there were, it would take a long time for the drivers here to get used to sharing the road.  Biking the streets of LA is a life-flashing-before-your-eyes experience.

Hollywood- If every waiter/waitress that was trying to be an actor/actress just picked up and left LA, the city’s population would be cut by 10% overnight.  Now take all the people trying to become models or stunt doubles, and their agents, and there goes another 10%.  Now remove all the tourists who want to see the Hollywood sign (2.5%), and the illegal immigrants who don’t pay taxes (2.5%), and there’s another 5% right there.  I’ve cut our population by a  quarter.  Yes, our economy would slow way down, and there would be no one to serve that thing you like at that restaurant you just discovered, but it would make the city a manageable size again, and make the remaining residents’ experience of the city exponentially better.

I’m not saying only people born in LA should live here.  That’s just ridiculous.  What I would like to see is more people who want to be here, people who enjoy living here instead of those who stay only because that’s what their industry demands.  Those of us who actually do love LA would love it even more if it weren’t overpopulated with unhappy people who trap themselves in a city they hate for no (or few) good reason(s)!

If you live in LA but you hate LA, the solution is simple.  Leave, or find something to love about it.  There is so much to love.  But seriously, gtfo.

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badness, goodness, life

Singular sensations

Diminutive Roommate named it "Boyfriend"

I have a good number of single friends, all really smart, funny, confident, good-looking people who just can’t seem to find another 20-something to appreciate them.  It’s such a shame, they’re such cool people.  I wish I could find partners for them, not because they’re all miserable on their own, just to make them feel special and cared for.  It’s nice to have a special connection with someone, and it bothers me that they don’t have that right now, and haven’t for years.  Some of them have tried online dating with mixed, but eventually fruitless results.  Diminutive Roommate got an awesome massage chair a while back, and seems very much in love, but it’s a temporary fix.

I hold back about how happy Boyfriend and I are together.  I don’t want to rub it in, but things are pretty great between us.  He has friends coming into town (they’re quality people) next month; we’re going to Disneyland together!  And again, I wish my friends had someone’s hand to hold in line, waiting to ride Pirates.  It’s so nice being able to share an experience with someone else who wants to share it with you too.  It’s exciting!  I wish there were six of me (male and female) so I could ask my friends out, hahaha  🙂  They’re just awesome.

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goodness, life

PostSecret

When I first saw this, I thought, “That’s my mom’s handwriting.”  It looks just like it.  Now I can’t stop wondering.

PostSecret is a really cool idea.  People anonymously mail in postcards with their secrets on them.  It’s heartbreaking to see how everyone carries around their own burdens so quietly, but it’s therapeutic to know we’re all in the same boat.  I feel really alone sometimes, but it seems more and more like I shouldn’t.

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family, goodness

Our love knows no bounds (apparently)

My parental units just returned from a trip to Europe to celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary.  They went to Dublin, Ireland (jealous!!), Scotland (jealous!!), and London.  Dad took this photo in Edinburgh with me in mind.  Check out the cafe sign in.  How fortuitous!

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goodness

So fun it’s scary

not as fun as it looks

Getting scared is just the best.  Not really scared, just startled by some jerk friend, or watching a scary movie while some jerk friend makes fun of you for cowering on the couch, or when you’re trying to walk back to your room after turning off all the lights and your roommate’s cat, Calico, goes streaking by, and you think, “HOLY SHIT OMG it’s just the fucking cat. Whew,” so you keep walking down the dark hallway to your room until WHAM!  Calico tackles your left ankle with all the force an 8-pound mammal can muster by digging her claws into the carpet and picking up an unearthly amount of speed and hurtling herself toward your legs with enough momentum to drive a rusty nail into a dead tree.  Then when you finally manage to stop screaming, you think, “Getting scared is the best.”

My buddy lives in an apartment in the Marina where we usually do our hanging out and game-playing (we’re pretty serious about our table-top/dice/card/strategy/board games).  I call his apartment our tree house, so let’s call him Treehouse Friend.  Treehouse Friend introduced us to Betrayal at House on the Hill, wherein the players explore a haunted house until one of them is possessed, and everyone else has to survive the possession.  Super scary!  Sometimes we play creepy music and light candles.

Diminutive Roommate, Teacher Roommate (who teaches ceramics at a local school, can sing opera-style like a pro, and lived with Diminutive Roommate for two years in college) and I are totally obsessed with this game right now for obvious reasons.  IT’S AWESOME.  Every game is different because there is no preset board your characters play on.  As we explore the house (commonly in different directions) we pull from a stack of tiles to reveal each room we’ve discovered, and the various events that happen in this room, or the items we find there.  The more we explore, the more likely the haunt will start and the house will cause one of the players to turn traitor and try to kill us all somehow!  Best of all there are 50 different haunts to play through, each of which is randomly determined by the events in the room we just explored.  It’s a fantastic game.  I’m already considering writing my own haunt.  Nerd!

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badness

And then my ears fell off

Sometimes when I’m on the phone, my ear goes ‘thump thump’ when the other person speaks.  It’s something to do with my eardrum getting hit oddly when I hear certain noises at a specific level.  Dad has said he hears it too, on the phone.  Before today, it only ever happened while I was on the phone.  At the conference call today, it seemed like everyone was shouting.  Even when I covered my ears, everyone was still too loud for me.

I wonder if it’s because my coworkers are all twenty years older than me (minimum) that they feel the need to speak so loudly.  My ear thumped while people spoke today toward the beginning of the meeting.  I couldn’t believe it was happening in person.  It feels like I’m going to go deaf if I stay around this noise level, or if I talk on the phone with my right ear exclusively (which I’ve been trying to avoid).

It’s freaking me out.  I’m 27.  I’ve never used ear buds (unlike the majority of my college buddies).  I’ve only ever been to a handful of concerts.  My ears should still be in good shape, right?

I feel compelled to point out that it’s 12:25am, I have the day off tomorrow, and it’s past my bedtime.  Maybe I’m older than I thought… 😦

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badness, humor, work

Haiku distraction: Murphy’s law

The kind of haikus I write are either spawned from boredom, disappointment, or a severe dislike of the situation in which I’ve (usually forcibly) been placed.  I went to another late-night meeting, and naturally another set of haikus resulted because everything that could have gone wrong during this meeting did go wrong.  The AV wasn’t set up like it was supposed to be, and when it was set up it buzzed the whole time, and then it stopped working.  The man in charge treated me like his own personal servant…again.  There weren’t enough chairs, so my coworkers and I had to sit outside and eat at the check-in table.  The meeting could have easily been half as long as it was, but the people in charge couldn’t stop plugging their shit to make money for their organization.

Unlease the haiku beast!

"i'm really excited about this year's numbers."

Cheshire cat lady,
smile and grin and never frown;
whose trust do you have?

The woman in charge never stops smiling, even when discussing unpleasant topics.  It’s super creepy.  My coworker noticed and made a comment about how she never knew what to think of what she was saying.

Poor athletics guy.
Your report encourages,
but why are you here?

The guy from athletics gave his update about how the university teams are doing really well and he kept it short.  Then he sat down and looked neglected and bored for the rest of the next hour and a half.  Poor bastard.

Little disasters
know me by name.  “Be our friend,”
they say.  No thank you.

My office was not in charge of this event, but when things went wrong, we were the ones who worked to make it right because the people in charge were too busy milling around feeling important, not realizing that hosting means making sure things go smoothly, and not acting like the lord and lady of the land, greeting subjects and making long-winded speeches.

Stop talking, ladies
and gentlemen.  Eight o’clock,
and I miss my boy.

Around eight I realized that I could be snuggled up on the couch in my pajamas with Boyfriend watching Star Trek: The Next Generation instead of hearing reports on adorable new merchandise the hosting organization hoped to overcharge the population for.  My poems broke out of their calm haiku exterior, and became more biting.

There once was a man who would speak.
His speech is what made our ears leak.
It started alright,
but later that night,
he kept speaking and made us all shriek!

When I get bored, I can literally feel some kind of invisible plasma slipping out of my ears, making me stupider somehow.  I’m not bored very often; I usually find some way to entertain myself, but my stamina drains away at these meetings, and I can only play in Imaginationland so long without looking like a space cadet.

Marching cult of the Fluffy Hat,
you’re crazier than my roommate’s cat.

It’s clear why you’re so proud of yourselves:
you make earplugs fly right off their shelves!
Your drums go ‘thump,’ your horns go ‘splat.’
You sound just like my roommate’s cat.

You prance around like little ponies,
and act like musicians, you little phonies.
You’re rude and untalented and smelly and fat,
you’re nowhere near as cute as my roommate’s cat.

My coworker loves my haikus and requested that I write about the band, which we all agree is like a creepy religious cult.  Diminutive Roommate has a pretty severe dislike of the band; I was so excited to show her this poem, I called her on my way home last night to recite it to her.

I don’t know anyone who thinks these four-hour meetings are helpful.  It’s like elevator music: If everyone hates it, why play it at all?

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